I've had multiple proton accounts and can vouch for (pure anecdote of course) two of those working fine despite me forgetting to use them completely for at least four years. So not sure how true what you say is. These are both free accounts btw.

The amount of hate that Proton gets here for the above still ambiguous situation (and in many other comment threads) is bizarre and oddly hive-minded.. The company is far from perfect but compared to the overtly parasitical openly done deep scanning of your email content and utter disregard for any responsiveness to user complaints from any major American tech company's email service, Proton is positively saintly by comparison. Id' suggest growing and regularly watering a bit of perspective.

EDIT: I see a number of comments about Proton's "jankiness" and service unreliability here too. I haven't experienced any of that either on desktop or mobile.